


Prelude: Find the Good and Do It

by B_Radley



Series: Rise and Fight Again [39]
Category: Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: An honest days work, Canto Bight, Flirting, Healing, Lando’s gonna Lando, Multi, criminals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27238312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: An ex-paladin discovers that hope can be found in the strangest of places.
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano/Original Character(s), Lando Calrissian/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Rise and Fight Again [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/487091
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Prelude: Find the Good and Do It

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Thou Soul of Love and Bravery](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221201) by [B_Radley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley). 



> This fell into my brain and wouldn’t leave. It is a prequel of sorts to _Thou Soul of Love and Bravery_ , as well as a future story with Mr. Calrissian. You don’t have to read that previous story, but it would warm my heart; it depicts Ahsoka’s run-in with Landonis Balthazar Calrissian.

**Now, or something like it.**

Ahsoka rests her back against Bryne Covenant’s chest in the bright sun of the tropical island. He finishes rubbing the lotion on her sensitive lekku and montrals; her skin tolerates the salt air with no issue, but the texture of her plains-given organs can be quiet painful without this mixture of akar fat and a few select herbs. Both she and Covenant have sunscreen fields in place and activated against the UV radiation of the primary on their skin. The floppy, wide-brimmed, high crowned straw hat that covers both montrals, that she usually wears against the sun, rests on the blanket beside her. As she finishes, she shoves him to the ground, pulling the ridiculous hat on and turning over to lie on him, her face against his skin.

She looks over at the datapad. A tiny spider droid, repurposed from its previous owners, hovers over the Imperial base, with its rising tower. She relaxes as their perimeter scans show no incursions into their ‘working vacation.’

She smirks against Covenant’s chest, before using her teeth, pulling a yelp from his mouth, making his eyes snap open. “What?”

“Did you think I forgot, Bait? You can’t tease me with the fact that you’ve already dealt with one of my pains in the ass before. One that No-no and ‘glann are about to go up against.”

Her eyebrows markings raise as his eyes look away from her. “Bait,” she says, drawing the single syllable out.

He breathes out. “Not exactly one of my finest hours, Runt,” he finally says. “Wasn’t sure of what I was fighting for. Of what I was doing.”

Ahsoka’s heart twists at his expression. She lifts up and kisses his forehead lightly. She wonders if she should push the issue. Usually when she does, he winds up being helped by what he has unburdened.

Especially if he is reluctant.

She goes for the shove. Or at least the teasing. “You’ve never had trouble kissing and telling before.”

He stares at her, smiles ruefully. “I guess you need a thrill. Since you weren’t able to seal the deal with him, I guess I’ll help you live vicariously.”

He yelps again as she shifts her hips. She settles down on his chest. He closes his eyes. “It was one of my first jobs for Corellia. After Dani found me…

**Back then**

The light rips into his consciousness. He shifts in the bed, trying to bring himself to full consciousness. He has a vague memory of different kinds of light, of touches and tastes. He curses, remembering his most recent life, where for several months, waking up with these sensations, with no memory of what had happened had been the norm.

A semblance of a life—an interregnum after two other lives had shattered. He shoves his grief away, concentrating on the task at hand.

Like trying to figure out how his hands had found themselves bound to the head of the bed, with cop-level binders.

As he shifts himself up, he realizes that he is naked, the covers draped lightly over his middle. He pulls on the binders, to no avail.

He suddenly remembers that he does have a way to get out of this. A remnant of one, if not both of those past lives.

He reaches out to something that had been with him since he was a child, although more intermittently in the last few years. He connects, then smiles as the binders fall away. He quickly swings his legs out of the bed. His eyes fall on his belongings, piled on a couch. He moves not to the clothes, but to the wallet.

He exhales sharply as he realizes what is missing. What is not.

His personal credits are there. The transport chit, the ticket from this world is gone.

He quickly dresses, is about to lift the blaster that he had purloined in last night’s festivities when the door bursts open.

Four of the heavily armored security behemoths move into the room. He isn’t able to raise the blaster before he falls, his nerves on fire from the multiple stun bursts.

Bryne Covenant’s last conscious thought is of a name. A name that had suddenly risen to the top of his long and ever-growing shit list. Right behind his boss’s boss, Draq’ Bel Iblis.

_Calrissian._

**Maxim’s month (Corellian Calendar),  
(Month Octos in the Galactic Standard Calendar)  
Year 7861 CRC  
Approximately 3.5 years after the fall of the Republic**

**Cantonica**

The man known as the Storm-king, but known by many names, including a new one, stares at himself in the mirror. His eyes move over the unfamiliar gray business suit, as he moves into the casino. His eyes shift from himself as he starts to survey his surroundings. _It’s just another kind of armor_ , bud, he thinks.

Bryne Covenant moves over to the bar. He looks over at the sabacc table, after ordering his preferred drink. Most of them seated at the table have the dull vacuous look that most of the patrons of this particular casino have. The one apparent exception, a handsome, bearded young human, maybe a few years younger than him, gazes back at one of his opponents, his dark eyes fixed on the Jablogian. Covenant notes the dark, even features . The young man wears a bright red shirt with a black cape, edged with a slightly different shade of red.

Bryne turns his attention back to his drink. The amber liquid opens the past up to him, helping him to wonder how the hell he had found himself sitting at a bar in a casino full of people that he ordinarily wouldn’t breathe the same rarified air with.

_It all started when you threw a piece of fruit at your granddaddy on Mandalore. Without using your hands._

He grits his teeth as the memories surge. The memory of his master, Shaak Ti, a lightsaber growing from her chest in front of his eyes. The further memory of his wife J’ohlana Wren, dying under the onslaught of blasts from Imperial troopers that he had once called his brothers.

The unknown, but assured fate of his hunt-sister, Ahsoka Tano. He closes his eyes as he hears his new boss, Dani Faygan, her eyes sympathetic, after she had searched for him. Searched for him on faith. Hers and that of his uncle Draq’ Bel Iblis, after the cauldron of Order 66. He opens his eyes and smiles slightly as he hears her warm voice in his ears.

“This is an easy first job, love. All you gotta do is make sure that Draq’s emissary gets to talk to one of the directors of the casino. You’ll cover her, so that she can make the deal.”

“How will I know who ‘she’ is?” he’d asked.

“You’ll know. Do this, get back safe, and you’ll be a Ranger in CorSec. Assigned to me.”

“You do know that I already passed Trials with an organization with much higher standards than CorSec, right?”

She’d reached over and touched his lips with hers, her hand warm on his cheek. “You forget. I knew you back then. I know that you cheated,” adding her musical laugh.

His rare laughter joins hers. “Oh no, babe. I challenged the test.”

Her hand had moved down to his groin, squeezing what it found. “You get back and I’ll give you a performance bonus.”

His thoughts of Dani Faygan are replaced by another, deeper voice. The young man from the sabacc table sits next to him at the bar. “You play sabacc?” he asks, an easy smile on his face.

“Sometimes. Just people watching, right now. I’m better at ‘Salvo’,” he adds, naming a particular Corellian dicegame.

The young man gestures to the bartender, pointing at Bryne’s empty glass. When the whisky comes, Bryne lifts the glass. He sees the young man with the same drink. His eyebrow raises as he cautiously sips the twenty-year old. He nods with a smile, then touches Bryne’s glass with his. “Calrissian,” he says. “Lando Calrissian.”

“King,” Bryne replies. Calrissian looks curiously at him, but nods.

“You on a break?” Bryne asks.

“A couple of minutes. Waiting for Shay to cool down before I beat her again.” Bryne follows his eyes to the Twi’lek woman, who stares at Calrissian with something like loathing. Bryne sees the scar through her eye shining pale in her pinkish skin. Her muscular arms are bare; she wears no type of binding around her lekku, as is customary with women of her species. Two very large Weequay stand behind her.

“You might want to let her win a bit. She doesn’t look like she takes defeat very well.”

Lando smiles. “Hopefully, I’ve got some backup. Somebody told me a Dragon might be looking out for me, if I play my cards right.”

Bryne keeps his face expressionless at Lando’s words, his use of Draq’ Bel Iblis’s well-known nickname foremost in Bryne’s mind. He remembers Dani’s instructions. _Doesn’t sound like an emissary._

He feels Lando’s hand move up to the lapel of his suit coat. “That’s a very fine weave,” he observes, running the cloth between his thumb and forefinger. “Chaldrini?”

Bryne grins, adding a bit of ‘aw-shucks’ to his reply. “This old thing? Just something I threw on. Don’t know what it is. First time ever wearing one.”

Lando smiles, nodding. “You made a good choice. Plus you wear it well. You look like someone who is used to wearing 2,000 credit tailored suits.”

Bryne again tries to keep his expression neutral, but nearly fails at the dry recitation of the cost. _Better not spill my drink on it_ , he thinks. His eyebrow raises as he realizes that Lando’s hand in flat on his chest now, but still massaging the cloth.

Or something.

He puts his drink down, but doesn’t move the hand away. “I’m just a bartender/cook/bouncer,” he says. “People dress me up for whatever role I need to play.” _Not that far from the truth, at least previously._

A presence moves behind them both. Calrissian drops his hand from Bryne’s chest, then nods. Bryne detects a hint of resignation as the hulking Weequay, a different one than the two that stood at Shay’s—as Calrissian had named the Twi’lek woman—elbows. “If you’re done flirting, Calrissian, Shay would like to finish whipping your ass,” the thug says in his grating voice.

Lando rises and smiles at Bryne. “Maybe we can get another drink later, King? Looking forward to partaking of some of that Corellian…

The Weequay drags him away, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging. _If there was a rest of the sentence_ , Bryne thinks.

He watches as Lando sits at the table; Shay says something. Her hard expression does soften as the dealer starts to deal. Bryne’s eyebrows knit together as he sees Lando place a small, shiny flask just so on the table, while smiling broadly at the Twi’lek woman.

Bryne sighs and gets up, taking his freshened drink through the veranda doors, onto the balcony. His hand touches his coat pocket. He grins as he reaches into the pocket and pulls out the expensive cigar, most likely purloined by the talented crimson hands of his boss, from her boss’s humidor.

A boss who also happens to be her father, hidden from the universe at large. A boss with many enemies, who’d fiercely protected Dani’s connection to him, all while still managing to nurture her life and career when he could. He grins at that knowledge—knowledge that she’d shared with him at the end of the war, while both were undercover for their respective organizations on an Outer Rim pirate vessel.

His heart twists, and then flips when thoughts of the war bring back Dani’s grief. A grief shared with him, but one that had nearly done for her. The loss of his master, Shaak Ti. A woman who had been, in many ways, his mother.

She had been so much more to Dani Faygan. In the last month of the war, she and Ti had knelt on the plains of Shili, and had expressed their love for one another. A love that had grown with the war, in spite of Corellia’s tacit neutrality. They had combined both cultures in their bonding. A bonding that had ripped Dani apart when it had ended with Shaak’s murder at the hands of her beloved clone cadets.

A bonding whose loss had caused her to shove everyone away from her. An isolation that could be fatal to Zeltrons, and nearly was. Until Draq’ Bel Iblis—that unacknowledged, loving, protective father had sent her on a quest to find another one lost in the conflagration.

A father’s love had saved her. A father that didn’t even know that she had gleaned her parentage from his signature on a school permission slip, putting it all together.

In turn, that love had saved Bryne as well, sending Dani to look for him, on nothing more than a hunch and faith that he had somehow survived.

He looks at the cigar, then bites the tip off. He stops, wondering how he was going to light the damned thing now.

A pale hand comes into his view, bringing down one of the torches at the corner of the rail. As he lights the cigar, then blows smoke away from her, he follows the arm up to the face, as she returns the torch to its slot.

The woman, a human, in maybe her mid-to-late forties, reaches up and bring the hood from her head. He stares into a pair of dark eyes, who return his look appraisingly. He makes sure that he lifts his eyes up to her hair, just as she reaches out and pulls the cigar from his lips, placing it in hers. She closes her eyes and breathes in the fragrant smoke, before exhaling away from his face. She returns the cigar to his lips. As she does, a length of her cropped dark hair flops on her forehead.

Without thinking, he brings his hand up and lifts the errant length back over her forehead. His eyes take in the streak of white in that particular part of her hair, before smoothing it back down.

In a fit of actual adult behavior, he keeps his eyes on hers, keeping them well away from the pale skin of her chest, an expanse of which is exposed as her robe fell open, over the low neckline of her gown.

She smirks at him, an expression that stabs into his heart every time he sees someone give it, as it brings back a trademarked expression of one of his lost. One who had shared two cultures with him. One whose relationship had changed on that same pirate ship, with a shove from its captain, a Pantoran with hard edges, but a deeply hidden loving heart. A pirate who’d recognized the changed dynamic, as the young woman had matured since he had last seen her.

Ahsoka Tano had been forged by her experiences in war, as well as at the hands of the Jedi Council. He curses to himself, looking away.

The woman lifts her hand to his cheek and brings his eyes back to hers. As she gives him a look filled with understanding, he is suddenly struck by the familiarity of her features. Something scratches at the back of his mind, as if trying to be let in.

“Trying to get away from people?” she asks. He smiles at the slight accent. One as familiar to him as any, even though he had only lived on Corellia for a few years as a child—an accent that apparently had imprinted on him during those few years.

Over three times as many years on Coruscant, in the Jedi Temple had left him with it, somehow.

“Yeah. I’m not a huge fan of crowds,” he replies.

She laughs briefly. “Just crowds, or specific crowds? Crowds of rich, entitled assholes, who also spent a great deal of time on the Republic’s ‘Most Wanted?”

He laughs with her. “Guilty as charged.”

As their laughter subsides into a companionable silence, they both turn to look out over Cantonica’s rugged beauty—a beauty that excludes Canto Bight’s immediate surroundings. Covenant looks at the woman out of the corner of his eye with the feeling of someone who is missing something. Her full lips quirk into a slight smile.

She turns to face him. He reaches up, drawing some smoke into his lungs, then hands her the cigar as he turns to exhale the smoke into the night.

A couple of quick draws and she hands it back. “Nothing to be ashamed of,” she says. “I too, like to try to get away from them as well. Spent nearly twenty years having to be around them.” Her voice trails off, there is a tiny hint of a wistful quality to her final words, as she returns her gaze to the night.

“I like to get to a place where I’m less _known_.” This is said in a whisper.

His mind perks up at the emphasis, clear even through the low volume, on the last word. He is about to turn and address her, when shouting erupts from inside in the small gaming area. He turns, focusing his attention on the source of the noise.

Somehow, he knows. He sees Calrissian, the young gambler being yanked up by his wrists. As Bryne focuses on him, he feels the woman leave his side. His eyes lock on her figure, as she makes for another door. Several large beings, all who scream ‘thuggish bodyguard’ surround her, as she moves into a larger corridor. He runs inside, just in time to see her and her new entourage round a corner in the corridor. One of the guards stares at him, as if daring him to follow.

“Great,” he says to himself. “You just found who you were supposed to be watching, then got distracted. This’ll look good as part of my audition package.”

“Hey!” he hears Calrissian’s voice exclaim. He turns, just in time to see one of Shay’s minions pick up the shiny flask, from next to the dealer. He closes his eyes and curses as he remembers reading a book on, of all things, cheating at cards.

The classic Shiner. A polished flask or other shiny object placed near the dealer, so that the cheat can see every card dealt.

He curses. “Not my circus, not my clown,” he says to himself. He starts to turn, wondering how he can find the Corellian woman. As he does, he sees Shay, the wannabe Twi’lek crime lord punch Lando in the gut.

She draws a knife, just as one of the minions twines her leathery hands in Lando’s dark hair, drawing his head back and baring his throat.

Bryne glances back where the woman had gone, along with a bunch of other thugs. He sighs.

 _Cheating at cards isn’t a death sentence_ , he thinks. He closes his eyes, touching his mystical buddy. In his mind, he sees Shay’s hand, the one that holds the knife, slip before it moves to slice the dark skin of Calrissian’s throat.

She screams in anger as the knife blade plunges into the eye socket of the Weequay on Lando’s right. Bryne reaches out and grabs the right wrist of yet another Weequay running to his apparent boss’s aid. He feels the wrist snap as he twists, then seizes the weapon from the angulated wrist.

The other thug drops from the slug that Bryne has just sent from the antiquated weapon. Thankfully, the slug explodes, showering Shay with brain matter, but also keeping anyone else from getting hurt. Or worse.

He does refrain from calling them innocent bystanders, based on his cursory glance when he had first walked in, as well as Shyla’s assessment on the balcony.

Bryne starts as he realizes where he had seen the woman. On a brief newsholo while visiting Corellia, just before the war.

Shyla Merricope. The Diktat, or elected head of state of Corellia. One who had fought, with Garm Bel Iblis, the Senator representing the Five Brothers, as the Corellian system was known, to keep Corellia as neutral as possible. All while helping the Jedi and the light wherever possible.

A good leader, forced from her office by the Empire with the complicity of her second and the Great and General Council, the upper house of Corellia’s legislature.

He curses his choice. He turns and drops the slugthrower, seizing a blaster from a patron who has brought it out and is waving it around.

He shoves past pit boss droid, who screams “No smoking!” He grins, realizing that the cigar is still clenched between his teeth.

A yellow blur slams into him as he exits the gaming room into a high corridor, similar to the one that Shyla had disappeared to. He manages to throw the Rodian off of his left arm, slamming him into the marble wall. As he does, his eyes fall on a diminutive figure, one that makes sure that the Rodian stays down. Bryne snarls as he passes her; she peers up at him through her oversized goggles.

He’ll have time to wonder why his former boss, Maz Kanata, is here as well. He feels the insistent touch of her mind—that bright inquisitive mind that had helped, in her own way, heal him after J’ohlana’s death. A mind not of a Jedi, but was as familiar in the Living Force as any that he had known. He instinctively turns left, accelerating.

He makes it to the landing platform, just off of this complex, to see Shyla turn towards him, at the foot of the ramp of a corvette. One that bears a green stripe around its gray length. An adornment known as the Faithstripe, based on the meaning of that unique shade of green in his own family’s history.

Shyla turns to him as he exits onto the landing platform. She nods at him, then smiles warmly. She reaches up and blows him a kiss. His eyes fall on the skin of her chest under her robe. Where it had been bare—not that he had noticed—a brilliant collection of precious jewels, each one on its own strand alternating white and yellow gold, hangs around her neck. A half-dozen black stones are attached midway, interspersed evenly among the strands.

Bryne stops as the ramp closes. He knows that his expression is filled with anger. With confusion. He tries to calm himself, wondering at which level of his chain of command had he been played at. He hears alarm sirens sound. Without a word, he turns and moves back into the building.

A short time later, Bryne makes his way through the corridors, hoping that he will be able to find a way to contact Dani, as well as escape Canto Bight. He notices that Calrissian’s face is on the monitor screen, until suddenly it isn’t anymore. The feelings of failure rise at that.

At least he doesn’t find his own face on there. Yet.

He pulls the stump of the now-cold cigar from his mouth and in a fit of pique, drops it on the marble floor.

He turns a corner—a move that he wonders if it is more figurative, rather than just literal. As he continues down a now-plushly carpeted wall, he wonders what career field he’ll pursue now, as he attempts to stay off of the New Order’s sensors.

A large pair of hands shove him against the wall, knocking the wind out of him. He goes to lift the blaster, but he see it on the floor where it had fallen. His head jerks back from the less-than-friendly-blow to his face from that same pink-skinned fist.

He looks up into Shay’s angry, dark eyes. Her sleeveless top, made of an expensive fabric, is covered with a substance that Bryne can only surmise is the remnants of her minion, who had lifted his blaster at Bryne, before her head had been ventilated.

Some part of him marvels at the fact that there seem to be very few brains among the substance. By accident, or evolutionary design, he isn’t sure.

Shay lifts her hands into fists, looking very comfortable using the fists as weapons. “I’m going to beat you into a pulp, little man,” she says in her accented voice. “You and your partner cost me thousands of credits. Not to mention you both distracted me from doing my own job.”

He manages to push himself up from the wall. He finally nods, putting on his most charming smile, then glances over her body. “Do you think we could possibly discuss this like two civilized beings? Two beings that are obviously attracted to one another?”

Bryne isn’t sure if the attractiveness of his proposal is as readily apparent as he wheezes the words out after the connection with the wall.

She smiles. It doesn’t help the anger. “Ordinarily, I would find that an enticing offer, in spite of your apparent weakness. You’d be an easy conquest.” The smile turns deadly. “But since that scumbag gambler managed to get away, I guess I’ll have to settle for twisting your head off.” She swings. “Followed by that part that you’re apparently very fond of.”

He manages to dodge her blow. He knows that he can’t use the Force, as a crowd gathers. Without hesitation, allows a blow to his shoulder, a blow that sends him back into the wall. He can see the look of triumph on her face as he hyperventilates.

She clasps both hands together and swings them like a hammer at his head.

The surprise on her face warms him as the blow misses him completely, as he smoothly slides under it, then comes up, seizing her right arm. Her own muscle mass and momentum as she starts to swing again carries her over his shoulder.

Her head makes a satisfying thud as it connects with the wall. She strikes the floor and lays still. At least for a moment. She starts to stir. He doesn’t wait around to admire the artistry of his remembered skill at the Laughing Murder, as the Corellian martial art is called.

He turns around and runs; the double-vision of the Force shows blaster bolts streaking towards him.

The real things strike the wall behind him, an instant after he’d moved. He streaks (at least for him) down the hall of another of the lodging area, sliding to a stop at the sight of a dead end. He curses. He is about to turn, pointing the blaster that he’d managed to recover. He’d managed to put at least a couple of halls between him and his pursuers.

A hand grasps his shoulder and yanks him backward.

Into one of the rooms.

Bryne whirls, the blaster comes up. He keeps it up, as his eyes fall on Lando Calrissian. None the worse for wear, except he seems to be missing his prize cape.

He raises his eyebrow at the blaster pointed at his middle. Finally Bryne shakes his head and sets the blaster on the table.

“How come you aren’t dead?”

Lando smiles. “Such concern. Some dumbass gave me a nice distraction, then hauled ass out of there before I could thank him.”

“Don’t you think they’d look for your name on the room?”

Calrissian snaps his fingers. “Now why didn’t I think to make sure the name was under someone else’s?”

“So how do you know the Dragon?” Bryne asks.

“I don’t. Somebody that did hire me made sure that if I did meet you to mention that word to you.”

“Who was that somebody? Let me guess. She’s short, orange, and pretty scary when she threatens you.”

Lando gives no recognition, but finally says, “Short help is better than no help.”

“What was your job?”

“Keep Shay distracted. By any means necessary.” He gives a wide grin. “Good thing she’s competitive as hell. She kept wanting to beat me. Even though she’s a shitty sabacc player.”

Bryne smirks. “The ‘Shiner’ didn’t hurt, I’m sure. Next time, use something a little less obvious.”

“I got a few tricks up my sleeve,” Lando says pointedly. He tenses at the sound of pounding feet outside the door. A sound that recedes.

“You’re safe in here. They won’t dare come into a paying guest’s room—not on this level. You can hole up here.”

After a moment, Bryne nods. “So how will we pass the time?”

Lando gives him a hooded look, then moves closer to him. “I think I might owe you a bit, for saving my life.” He lifts his hand, not quite touching Bryne’s cheek.

Bryne shrugs and removes his jacket. “Beats playing cards, I guess. Marginally.”

 **Morning**

Bryne Covenant senses the door coming open to the cell. At the signature of the man who enters his cell, he keeps his eyes closed.

After several moments, Draq’ Bel Iblis says, “So this is what it’s come to. I come to bail you out and you treat me like I’ve got some disease.”

Bryne keeps his eyes closed, but replies, “You do. It’s called ‘let’s use the skills of Bryne Covenant to make sure my rich buddies and washed-up politicians are taken care of’.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, boy.”

At that Bryne’s eyes open. As he does, the wave of warmth increases as Dani walk in behind the Dragon. “I’m nearly thirty years old. Not too many people get to call me ‘boy’ and don’t pay a price for it.”

“Come on,” Draq’ says.

“I’m kinda liking my situation right now. Three hot bowls of slop a day and nobody bugs the shit out of me. Nobody lies to me about what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“Like I said. You don’t know what you’re saying. Come on, Chief Superintendent,” he says to Dani. “He can swim home for all I care.”

Dani ignores him, her eyes a mixture of hardness and compassion. Draq’ stops and stares at her. She doesn’t even flinch. He stalks out of the cell.

“Why are you still here, Dani?” Bryne asks. “He told you to leave me.”

She crosses her arms. Her skin flushes a brighter crimson. Her eyes transition to the black. He takes a step back. Ordinarily, he would welcome that shift, as it had signified some strong emotions that had left them both sweating and breathing hard. _Not when it’s coupled with the look she is giving him, or the flushed skin_. “Because I don’t want you to throw your chances of a life away. Just because you’re as big of an asshole as he is. Just because of your pride.”

He exhales, then rises. He places his hands on her shoulders. “Draq’ told me when he brought me back, and I quote, to ‘find the good and do it.’ I can’t do that when I feel like I’m left in the dark. When I feel like I’m serving his ends, more than Corellia’s. Or the galaxy’s.”

“How are you not serving the galaxy?” Dani asks calmly.

“I saw the little bauble that Merricope walked away with. I thought everybody told me she’d been one of the good ones. The real deal. Guess there’s no such thing. Plus, you know what I was. I can’t stand by when somebody’s about to be slaughtered. No matter how richly they deserve it. Might’ve been the most worthwhile thing I’ve done, rather than dealing with whatever scumbags that Merricope met with. Whatever deal they garnered.”

“Why do you think you were actually there?” Dani asks.

He shrugs, then looks away. “That’s the fifty million credit question, ain’t it.”

“Then I’ll give you a clue, since you apparently are either too dense or too angry to see it,” she says, her anger rising again. “Shyla Merricope is one of the good ones. So much so that she’s spent the last few years, wallowing in almost as much self-pity as you. Wondering if she could’ve done anything differently. She’s been dealing with her doubts by growing some of the contacts that she kept away from Corellia, or cultivating them to use them to help free Corellia someday.”

Without a word, she grabs him by the ear and pulls him from the cell. She remains silent, her anger showing through her empathic resonance. The anger, which the charge sergeant and everybody in the detention center can feel, hastens the process of him leaving.

As they approach one of the landing platforms, she pulls him into an alcove. “She was here to wrangle a deal. She gave support to one of the candidates for the board of this place. In return, she got that little bauble, as you call it.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing much. Just a symbol of one of the Falleen families that make up Black Sun.”

He raises his eyebrows. “She’ll in turn give it to another scumbag, a Hutt who seems to be less avaricious than most. He’ll keep it safe, and put it out that another Hutt has it. We’ll use that information to lessen the boot that the second Hutt has on the neck of the slaves of Nar Kanji. Plus, we get somebody on the board here who works for us.”

Bryne closes his eyes. “So why did you need me?”

“We got word at the last minute, that Shay and her little social club were there to disrupt Shyla’s work. She usually uses extreme violence. But we couldn’t move against her directly. All we could do was set up this little scenario and throw the unknown into it.”

“The unknown being me,” he replies.

“Exactly. I used my new buddy Maz—who has some humdingers of stories about you, bud, by the way—to find someone to gamble with her and beat her, until the time was right for somebody to intervene.”

“You knew that I would be that dumbass to rush in,” Bryne says.

She laughs, then reaches up to kiss him. Yup,” she says against his lips.

“So what about the gambler? He was taking a huge risk.”

“A little bit. He generally knew what you looked like. He knew when to time his cheating to when you arrive.”

“That’s why he seemed to be so obvious at it.”

“Yep. You did improvise some, bud. You may have been hanging around me too long. Didn’t expect you to fall into bed with him afterwards.”

He is unsuccessful at suppressing the blush. Her smile grows warmer; she pulls him into a tighter embrace.

“So what’s he get out of it?” He smirks. “Besides my awesomeness?”

She shoves him from the alcove. “He gets a quite substantial debt that Maz bought up forgiven. Plus the winnings that he got off of Shay and a few others. Very much worth his time.” Her now-purple eyes flash devilishly. “It’ll help him get over the loss of one such as you.”

“So I guess that I owe the old bastard an apology? That’s going to hurt more than the bruises,” he says resignedly.

She stops and pulls him to her again. Her tears flow freely. “No,” she whispers. “He just wants you to start living again. You’re trying. But you’ve got a long way to go.” He brushes the tears from her cheeks. “So do I,” she continues. “But we’ve got each other, and we’ve got Draq’.

“We’ll make it. We’ll stand again.”

Later as she rests against him on the couch of the small scout ship, he stares at the object that she had given him. A gold representation of an ancient weapon. Flipped point down from the usual examples, to denote the bearer’s status.

The gold arrowhead-shaped shield of a Corellian Ranger. The protectors of the people of the Eldest Brother, out in the stars, where regular CorSec officers, including those at a similar rank, Inspector, protect them on the world itself.

As he stares at the gold, and runs his thumb over the silver, four-pointed star in the middle with another smaller version in the center of the larger star, he feels something he hasn’t felt since a young Togruta removed his padawan braid.

A sense of belonging. Belonging to something larger than himself.

**Now**

Ahsoka looks away, so that he can’t see her tears. When she can, she pulls his lips to hers, then rests her forehead markings on the triumvirate of scars on his forehead. A leftover from that long ago night of lightsabers and blasterfire. When his first world had died.

Without a word, she rises and pulls him to his feet. “I think we’ve relaxed enough, Bait. Time to get back to it.”

She tries not to see the longing in his face. The longing for more time together, when their time in a year can be measured on the fingers of one hand.

Ahsoka is sure that it is mirrored on her face as well. He reaches over moves his forehead back to hers, but adds a kiss to one of his favorite spots on her. At least one of her favorite spots that he can kiss in public anywhere other than Zeltros, maybe.

The end of her nose tingles with the memory of the kiss.

“Come on, Runt,” he says. “Pack up the kit. I’ll get the sensor tarp down, then we can make sure our little friends over the base are returned to their proper owners. Right after we put the spike in them to blind their sensors while we head home.”

As she busies herself with the mundane tasks, she smiles at the last thought he had shared with her.

_He still belongs. Not just to me, but to others. Just a smaller family than his first, but larger than his second._

**Then, again**

Lando tosses his pack off of the transport ship. He sighs, looking at the empty credit chip. At least he doesn’t owe anything to anyone anymore. He thought he might have been able to swing the downpayment on a small freighter. He looks in the glass of the porthole. With his beard shaved, he looks even younger than his mid twenties—one of the reasons he had grown a beard in the first place.

Not this time. He sees a tall woman looking at her, from where she leans against the docking bay wall. His eyes take in her beauty, from the long legs and clear blue skin, to the lavender hair in a braid. Her face is bereft of the tattoos that Pantorans generally wear. Her bronze eyes are wary, but she returns his gaze.

“So, bud. You look like you can handle yourself. You need a job?” she asks in a throaty, sharp Pantoran accent.

“Is it that obvious?”

She shrugs. “Dunno. But you were looking at that credit chip with a mournful expression. Can you handle yourself in a fight?”

“I’m not bad.”

“Little young, though,” she muses. “Maybe it means you haven’t learned any bad habits.”

“We won’t know until we try,” he replies, trying his best to sound young and overly confident.

 _Not so much of a stretch_ , he thinks. His thoughts waver at her next question.

“Can you cook?”

He weighs his answer. “A few dishes.” Her face falls, but clears again.

“Okay. Name’s Rhayme. Lassa Rhayme. Got a ship a couple of doors down. 1500 local time. Don’t be late.”

As she turns away, Lando Calrissian grins as he remembers what this woman’s father had said to him awhile back. _Be careful, bud. She’s shot me before._

He shakes his head at his luck. _You ain’t me, old man._

Nevertheless, he rubs his ass, in the approximate location that the old man had shown him the blaster scar.

_This’ll be fun._


End file.
